Britain’s richest family convicted of brutally exploiting their domestic staff and sentenced to jail terms

3 comments

1. > The Hindujas reached a confidential out-of-court settlement with the three employees who had made the accusations against them, but the prosecution decided to pursue the case owing to the gravity of the charges.

   Good. People here get up in arms about the rich paying minimum wage to their employees, but to import them from your country of origin and illegally employ them with effectively no pay is next level exploitation and spitting on the protections and legal system they live here to enjoy.

   > Representing Ajay Hinduja, Yael Hayat criticised the “excessive” indictment, arguing that the trial should be a question of “justice, not social justice”. Namrata Hinduja’s lawyer, Romain Jordan, also pleaded for acquittal, claiming the prosecutors were aiming to make an example of the family. He argued that the prosecution had failed to mention payments made to staff on top of their cash salaries.

   Yes, and they *should* be made an example of. Importing servants from “back home” to pay a pittance is the last kind of corrupt practices we should be allowing in. They deserve their jail terms. Not sure if the UK extradites to Switzerland. Will check back on this at a later point to see if they actually will do the time.

2. The cast system exploit to the fullest

3. I’m honestly a bit torn about whats right in this case. Here is another article which has some more specifics:

   [https://www.etvbharat.com/en/!international/hindujas-file-appeal-against-swiss-courts-jail-term-order-enn24062200110](https://www.etvbharat.com/en/!international/hindujas-file-appeal-against-swiss-courts-jail-term-order-enn24062200110)

   What I’m unclear about is that it looks like they were accused of two separate offences – human trafficking (withholding passports, compelling people to not leave) AND violating labour laws (underpayment of employees). It also seems like they have been acquitted of all the human trafficking stuff.

   So if they aren’t guilty of the human trafficking offences AND the original people who made the complaint are now saying that that they “withdrawn their respective complaints after declaring to the court that they had never intended to be involved in such proceedings” – with both those being true, 4 years in jail for under-payment of employees seems kinda excessive to me.

   Fuck rich people for sure but this honestly seems a bit dis-proportionate if I think about it in terms of the gut-feel of whats an appropriate punishment for the crime.